Grey's Anatomy Posted September 6, 2012 Report Share Posted September 6, 2012 Those of you have experience writing draft letters for your referees or have personally written references before, how exactly should one write a draft reference about themselves from the perspective of the referee? Should it be a character reference or based more on experiences? Any guidance/advice towards what a good letter of recommendation entails would be greatly appreciated! Thank you All the best to those who are applying this year! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NewfieMike Posted September 6, 2012 Report Share Posted September 6, 2012 I'm a firm believer of specific examples of unusual things. It's one thing to say: "So and so came to my lab this summer and was a very bright, capable, and hard working student and rose to the challenge for some extra work" compared to "So and so came into my lab when one of our projects had sort of stalled. Numerous trainees had tried to revive the project with marginal success. So and so came into my office and asked if he/she could try taking it on in addition to their current work. I reasoned that they shouldn't waste their summer figuring out something my post-docs couldn't figure out but they insisted on trying". 3 months later and So and So produced some high quality data. With some polishing this work should be ready for publication" currently I'm applying for a pretty big grad scholarship and one of my referees asked for a detailed list of the activities I was involved in. Instead of giving him "dates, duties, and responsiblities", I gave him specific examples of stuff that I did while doing it as an example of particular skills that the committee is looking for. That was the approach I took with all my med reference letters. I scored the 97th percentile for that category for all the students accepted at Calgary that cycle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thehumanmacbook Posted September 6, 2012 Report Share Posted September 6, 2012 I'm a firm believer of specific examples of unusual things. It's one thing to say: "So and so came to my lab this summer and was a very bright, capable, and hard working student and rose to the challenge for some extra work" compared to "So and so came into my lab when one of our projects had sort of stalled. Numerous trainees had tried to revive the project with marginal success. So and so came into my office and asked if he/she could try taking it on in addition to their current work. I reasoned that they shouldn't waste their summer figuring out something my post-docs couldn't figure out but they insisted on trying". 3 months later and So and So produced some high quality data. With some polishing this work should be ready for publication" currently I'm applying for a pretty big grad scholarship and one of my referees asked for a detailed list of the activities I was involved in. Instead of giving him "dates, duties, and responsiblities", I gave him specific examples of stuff that I did while doing it as an example of particular skills that the committee is looking for. That was the approach I took with all my med reference letters. I scored the 97th percentile for that category for all the students accepted at Calgary that cycle. Thanks for the solid advice Newfie! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lactic Folly Posted September 8, 2012 Report Share Posted September 8, 2012 +1, except for the fact that the OP requested a good LOR, not an outstanding one Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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